Isolated or synthesized proteins and antibodies, such as IgGs, are used therapeutically and for diagnostic and research purposes. By labeling antibodies with detectable labels, such as, for example, fluorophores, antibodies can be used to specifically detect target biological molecules or cells. Antibodies may also be tagged with binding reagents, such as, for example, biotin, so that they may be used to specifically bind target biological molecules or cells, followed by purification of the biological molecule or cell by using a reagent that binds to the tagged antibody, for example, streptavidin. Antibodies have generally been labeled at cysteine or lysine residues, which may often be present in the Fab, or binding portion of the antibody. Adding tags or labels in this region may disrupt or at least alter the binding properties of the antibody. Further, it is often difficult to quantitate the number of labeled molecules attached to each antibody.
Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) have become indispensable drugs to combat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, and other diseases or conditions. However, antibodies generated in non-human cell lines may have antigenic features recognized as foreign by the human immune system, limiting the antibodies' half-life and efficacy. Incorporating human IgG sequences into transgenic mice has reduced, but not eliminated, immunogenicity problems. Besides the protein sequence, the nature of the oligosaccharides attached to the IgG has a profound effect on immune-system recognition. Because glycosylation is cell type specific, IgGs produced in different host cells contain different patterns of oligosaccharides, which could affect the biological functions. Even where cells, such as human embryonic stem cells, are grown on mouse feeder layers in the presence of animal-derived serum replacements, the cells incorporated a nonhuman, and immunogenic, sialic acid, and the sialic acid was then found on the cell surface. (Martin, M. J., et al., Nature Medicine, 2005, 11:228-232). Although the therapeutic antibody industry has tried to avoid these problems by producing less antigenic IgG with defucosylated oligosaccharides, defucosylated antibodies are not equivalent to humanized antibodies, and may still have immunogenecity issues, as well as having different half-lives than natural human antibodies.
Metabolic oligosaccharide engineering refers to the introduction of subtle modifications into monosaccharide residues within cellular glycans. Researchers have used metabolic engineering to disrupt glycan biosynthesis, chemically modify cell surfaces, probe metabolic flux inside cells, and to identify specific glycoprotein subtypes from the proteome. (reviewed in Dube, D. H., and Bertozzi, C. R., Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, 2003, 7:616-625).
There is a need for antibodies that have tags or labels at sites other than the binding region, and for antibodies that may be easily labeled using simple and efficient chemical reactions. There is also a need for antibodies that have post-translational modifications that are more like human antibodies.